Subtle with/within

Question

Hello mie maertre/miei maestri dal mondo,

I got troubled with a subtle thing here two sentenses read:

ex.
1:Student numbers will be unique with document
2:Student numbers will be unique within document

Context: Statistics. Students are anonymized by student numbers.

Question:
First, I would ask how different these sentence sound?

Second, my interpretation or misinterpretation rise the following questions:
A: Can No. 1 mean, for example there are similar documents and, (a set of) student numbers in one document will be obviously different from another document, namely for example, the former uses #0001, 0002... whereas the latter uses AA-0001, 0002, ...?
B: Does No. 2 appear simply focusing on the numbers within a document that will be completely different among the students, rather emphasizing the fact (up to now my assumption) that the students dealt in one document will be given completely different numbers? Or, does the No. 2 inspire the same concept as No. 1 without further detailed definition?

I might be asking quite stupid question or confusing question, but anybody tries to demistify the cloud surrounding this issue, I would appreciate.

Thanks,
Souroin

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Is it possible that the first sentence was a misprint?

I don't find the first one particularly meaningful.

The second, containing "unique within document", says to me that the following is true, where SN means "student number":

Document 1: SNs: 45, 75, 35, 19, ... (no duplicates within this document)
Document 2: SNs: 45, 25, 17, 75, ... (no duplicates within this document)
...
...

But notice that the SNs are not unique over the totality of documents. (45 and 75 are duplicates.)

Souroin · Answer

Hello, CalifJim,

Thank you very much again (I remember you've answered me a couple of times before).

The first one wasn't a misprint but just my grammatical error. I think what you mentioned at the last line using 'over the totality' phrase says what I wanted to say as the sentence No. 1.
I know your people can say something like "numbers varies 'with' documents" but this time I understood you don't say 'with' in that way to express my intention. Perhaps you might say "Each document will have unique SNs (same type within a document but different from the others)", instead of the original sentence No. 1., am I still not close to ok-level understanding?

The No. 2 saying 'within document' is easily absorbably explained in your message, thank you.

Regards,
Souroin

CalifJim · Answer

I think the alternate form you want is the following pattern:

Document 1: SN 4857
Document 2: SN 3827
Document 3: SN 9578
...
and so on -- every document has its own SN. No two documents have the same SN.

If that is what you want to describe, you can say "Each document has its own unique student number."

Is that what you mean?

Souroin · Answer

Hello Califjim,

Thanks very much for your time and patience to read and reply this.
I think your reply completely cleared off the cloud of confusion.

You might not read this as you should spend time on answering the others, but I put the background exactly what it was if you would be interested to know...

As was at work (a person next to me kind of looking over my screen while I was typing up the question), I couldn't tell more specific context (in other words people can divulge company secret information using publicly open internet forum, perhaps I was watched over) but it was about a general guideline for creating a study protocol (document) to set the instruction on assigning a patient with a patient number

unique within (as I learned from your reply) a protocol. A clinical study deals with (ex. Phase II) perhaps nearly a hundred of patients and under randomized condition the study personnel use these coded numbers (I didn't have to explain as you might know this).

Overall, when the issue focuses on a single study or a set of study conducted according to a protocol, 'patient number should be unique within protocol' and when it attempts to emphasize a set of patient numbers used for a study should be different from other studies "each protocol has it own unique patients numbers".

What made me confused more was the fundamental knowledge that the patients will usually be given different numbers within a study or within a protocol, but the sentence was to instruct people preparing protocol to emphasize study personnel to remind not to use the same number.

Anyway, I do very much appreciate your support as always, Califjim, il mio grande maestro!!

Best regards,
Souroin

CalifJim · Answer

Prego!

Giacco di California.

Subtle with/within

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